


There Go I

by LouiseC



Series: Season Three Codas [3]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 11:29:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LouiseC/pseuds/LouiseC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Gracie, what's wrong? Are you okay? Do you need me to come?" Oh god, why is she calling him in the middle of the night.</p><p>Coda for 3x06</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Go I

**Author's Note:**

> Coda for 3x06
> 
>  
> 
> I've been told to post more here, what's already lurking on my livejournal.

"Uncle Steve?"

"Grace?" Steve sits bolt upright in his bed where he had been not-asleep for hours, unable to sleep and instead listening to the sound breeze in the trees and the high tide gently lapping at the small seawall. 

He slides off the bed and reaches for his pants, discarded before falling into the shower. "Gracie, what's wrong? Are you okay? Do you need me to come?" Oh god, why is she calling him in the middle of the night.

"I'm okay."

He breathes out through his mouth and pauses to gather his thoughts. "You're sure?" he prompts. "Did Danno forget to take you for shave ice again?"

"It's the middle of the night, Uncle Steve. And I don't need to use the secret trouble word."

"Duress."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Uncle Steve I think that there is something wrong with Danno. He was sad at my dance tonight and when I asked him he just smiled and told me I was being a silly monkey and twirled me about some more."

"I see."

"And I'm pretty sure that I saw him wipe his eyes when he was leaving down the driveway after dropping me home."

"Wait, you aren't with your dad now?"

"Nope. Uncle Steve, did something sad happen? Danno always needs lots of extra hugs when something sad happens at work."

"Kind of. I think that your dad was just reminded of something sad that happened before you were born."

"Oh."

Steve considers for a few moments before deciding to take a gamble. "Gracie, do you know why your mom and dad called you Grace?" He hopes she does but assumes the most graphic of the details have been omitted.

"Because my daddy's partner was called Grace and the bad men hurt her." Steve can hear her swallow. "Like they hurt Detective Meka."

"Well your dad told me that story today and then he was just very glad that he got to go to the dance with you tonight."

"It was fun," she admits. "But now he is all by himself. What if he is still sad?"

"I'll take care of it, okay Gracie?" And it's the excuse he needs to make the call he has been forcing himself not to.

"Thanks. You look after my daddy."

"Always, Grace."

When they've said their goodbyes and hung up, Steve imagines Grace snuggling down into her bed, her burden lightened knowing that her daddy will be looked after while she sleeps. 

Before the screen can dim, he brings up his partner's number on the phone and dials it.

Danny answers after only a couple of rings. "Took you long enough."

Steve chuckles. "You couldn't sleep either I take it?"

"No. Too much to think about, y'know?"

Steve nods. "I know. Look, Danny, Grace just called me and said she was worried about you being sad."

"Oh."

"Are you?"

"'Sad' is a little overly simplistic in the scheme of things, Steve." 

"You want me to come over?"

"Kind of want to be alone."

"Kind of?"

"Talk to me?"

Steve nods, laying back across the width of his bed. "There's this thing that happens sometimes, more often than it should, where a soldier becomes a posthumous father."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And then there are the ones who are born after something big happens. There's no forgetting what happened. What you said today about Grace's generation not knowing a world without terrorists, it made me so grateful. Reminded me how lucky I am to be here."

"You?"

"Growing up on this island, being in a military family, there are certain legacies that you carry with you. I was conceived on my dad's last leave before the end of the vietnam war."

"And he came home. You're one of the lucky ones."

"I am. But my dad, was not so much. My dad came home, but my grandfather didn't."

"Pearl Harbor," Danny says quietly. 

"Yes. So I wasn't that kid, but I grew up in the shadow of it. Every anniversary, every memorial day, being reminded, seeing my dad being proud but also sad for what he missed."

"He didn't even have time to borrow," Danny echos his earlier words.

"No. Not even any memories of his own. All he grew up with was the collective consciousness of the attack and what it means to be the child of an Arizona victim. Grace, she's had you for ten years. Whatever had happened today, or tomorrow or in ten more years time, she's had you. She knew her Danno and she knows how much you love her."

"So much that it actually hurts me."

"I know, Danny. I see it."

"I think about the kids who lost their parents that day, the people in the towers, the firefighters and other cops. Grace has a sister and when people hear she died on September the 11th, they assume she was a first responder that day. She doesn't bother correcting them."

"That's got to be rough."

"It is. And when I think how close my Grace came to..." Danny's voice cracks and his breath heaves.

"Hey," Steve soothes, "She didn't, okay. I know that me saying that doesn't erase a decade of what ifs, but you're alive, Danno."

"I know. Hey Steve, do you keep a loaded gun in your room?"

"Of course," Steve frowns. "Why?"

"Don't shoot me, okay?"

"Huh?" The call disconnects. Steve frowns at his phone.

"Hi," Danny says softly from the doorway.

Steve sits up, frowning now at his partner instead of his phone. "You said not to come over."

"That I did. Because I was sitting in my car outside Rachel's house, watching my daughter's bedroom light still on at midnight. She turned it off and you called and I kind of just drove over here."

"Oh. You want to go down and watch TV?" Steve asks.

"I really, really don't." Danny crosses the moonlit space between the door and the end of Steve's bed. "What I want," he says quietly, "Is to lay down and close my eyes and not feel memories weighing down on me like a car is crushing my chest."

"I think that can be organised." Steve rearranges himself on the bed so he is laying the right way and pats the empty spot beside him.

"Is this weird? This is weird," Danny hesitates.

"It is," Steve agrees. "But after today, I really don't give a flying fuck, Danno."

Danny laughs and Steve thinks to himself that the sound is golden. "Well okay then, Commander Bossy." Danny lays down and rests his hands behind his head. "Tell Kono about this and I will put sugar in your coffee for a month."

"Fair enough." Steve pulls the sheet up over them and closes his eyes. "To owning time," he offers.

"To Grace."


End file.
